EA Certification Study Guide Part 2: Dashboard Design

The notes for this portion of the study guide are light because this part of the exam is mostly going to be scenario based questions around best practices. I recommend focusing on the Salesforce provided materials to make sure you understand the design standards that Salesforce suggests.

Source: Einstein Analytics Tech Lounge, 4/4/2019

Sources:

1. Trailhead Badges
   -*Analytics App Design
   -Quick Start: Einstein Analytics
   -Analytics Basics
   -Analytics Dashboard Building Basics
   -Analytics App Basics
   -Analytics App Template Development
2. Learning Map
   -Build Interaction Dashboards Video Series
3. Documentation in Exam Guide
   -Analytics Lookbook
   -*Best Practices for Building Your Own Analytics Dashboard
4. Einstein Analytics Training Videos
   -Video 5 and 6: Designing Dashboards
   -Video 14: Analytics Apps
5. External Resources
   -3 Ways to Go Above and Beyond with Analytics
   -Einstein Analytics vs. Operational Reporting — What’s the Difference?
   -Einstein Analytics: Design & Interaction Principles
   -Collection of articles on dashboard design (read through a couple that look interesting to you)

*If you are short on time, focus on these.

Notes:

As always, I recommend you read/watch each of the sources and take your own notes. My summaries below are not inclusive of what will appear on the exam.

Gathering A Customer’s Dashboard Requirements

• Make these decisions before building apps
  — Determine the app’s audience and purpose
  — Think through the app’s structure: what content are you going to show and how to organize it into a logical flow?
  — Choose the correct surface elements: signals/aesthetic choices/visual elements
• How Salesforce suggests you gather requirements
  — Gather 4–8 stakeholders in a 60–90 min session and start by establishing the purpose of the dashboard: who is going to view it, what do they need
  — Have each participant sketch out one or more ideas for the dashboard then present to the group
  — As a group, discuss and sort the sketches then prioritize them based on relevance to the original dashboard purpose
  — Use the top ideas to start building out your dashboard — always sketch out a build plan before starting

UX Design and Einstein Best Practices

Designing the Dashboard

• Design principles
  — Clarity: eliminate ambiguity from your dashboard
  — Efficiency: Streamline and optimize workflows
  — Consistency: Use the same names and similar graphic elements for similar data points
  — Beauty: Fluid experiences that feel natural
• “Deep” Design Thinking
  — Surface level: Colors, fonts, graphics, etc.
  — Structure: Scope, layout, flow or the dashboard
  — Purpose: What is the user’s intentions and goals when using the dashboard
• Structuring an App’s Content — Choose a focus
  — Priority: Some common dashboard formats are an F, Z, or side-by-side pattern. Suggestion of top left to bottom right in most cases
  — Logic: Take users through a logical flow
  — Level of granularity: Start with high-level details before getting specific
  — Similarity: Group like elements together
• Design Best Practices
  — Place high level, actionable widgets near the top left
  — Group filters together at the top or left
  — Develop in a way that invites users to continually drill down
  — Choose chart types for function, not variety
  — Don’t clutter the dashboard, leave some empty space

Einstein Best Practices

• Process for developing apps in Einstein
  — Start by loading data into datasets and ensure it is in a format that works well
  — Create a series of lenses and explorations
  — Save sets of these explorations into dashboards
  — Save sets of dashboards into an app
• Building in Einstein
  — Use charts to visualize your data quickly and provide summaries and tables for a close up, detailed view
  — Utilize pages to allow users to digest content in chunks and create dynamic pathways through the dashboard
  — Embed the dashboards where the users work throughout Salesforce: home screen, Account page, Case details, etc.
  — Always optimize your dashboards for mobile
  — Make sure you turn on the action framework where possible
  — Use containers and colors to guide the user through the visuals
  — Make dashboards and layouts consistent

Using Template Apps

• Use pre-built templates from Salesforce inside Einstein to speed up development.
  — Dashboard templates: Pre-built dashboard layouts to help with a quicker design. Simply place your lenses into the provided chart and table widgets. “Smart” templates provided will take you through a wizard to fill out the dashboard
  — App templates: Series of lenses and dashboards that are generated after going through a wizard inside Einstein.
• How to iterate on a pre-built App template:
  — Install with the basic settings first and investigate what it does
  — Reinstall (“reconfigure” in the app details) it with custom settings
  — Get feedback from users and customize more on your team’s needs
  — Add and change functionality over time
• Salesforce provide many different types of out-of-the-box templates for example: Sales, Service, Financial, Event Monitoring, Analytics Adoption etc.
  — Can also pre-package and build your own templated apps to distribute to customers

Next: Einstein Discovery